Jared Dillian is taking personal time off this week, so we’re seizing the opportunity to treat you to some of the excellent and thought-provoking writing Jared’s Street Freak subscribers enjoy in his monthly newsletter. The following is an excerpt from the May issue of Street Freak.

Every once in a while, the investing public goes through these convulsions where people think they can get a free lunch. Remember, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. There is even an acronym for it: TANSTAAFL. Yet people try.

Back in 2015 I wrote about my hometown, Norwich, Connecticut, a luckless town at the intersection of three rivers: the Thames, the Shetucket, and the Quinebaug. Today I’m expanding the discussion to include the whole state, which is allegedly in crisis.

I talk about my Wall Street experience very casually, like it is no big deal, but if I sit and think about it long enough, I start to realize what an absolute miracle it was that I ended up working at Lehman Brothers in 2001.